NVIDIA has released five new versions of its Game Ready drivers since 572.16 (which arrived alongside RTX 50-series GPUs), but it hasn’t fixed the root of the problems experienced by many gamers.
Gamers Nexus has now published a video replicating and confirming the NVIDIA driver issues that countless users have reported.
GN Host Stephen Burke calls the overall situation “absolutely abhorrent and completely embarrassing,” and I don’t think that’s being too harsh.
But before I cover GN’s findings (and temporary fixes), a bit of backstory regarding NVIDIA’s 572.XX drivers.
NVIDIA’s current driver issues began in January 2025
The first of NVIDIA’s new RTX 50-series graphics cards launched on January 30, 2025, and NVIDIA simultaneously released its Game Ready 572.16 driver package to support the latest hardware.
Early adopters of the RTX 5090 were the first to sound the alarm after the driver update went out, but it wasn’t long before 40-series users were also reporting issues with driver version 572.16.
Whether it was random black screens, detection failure, or outright crashes, it was clear that something wasn’t working as intended.
In late March, Tom’s Hardware highlighted an in-depth user analysis on the r/Hardware subreddit, which aims to uncover issues surrounding the 572.XX drivers and RTX 40-series cards (which the Redditor is using).
PSA: Nvidia Widespread Black Screen or Hard OS Crash Issues on 4xxx (or older) Series Cards Need To Be Widely Known & Fixed. from r/hardware
The top comment in response to the Reddit analysis is, unsurprisingly, an early RTX 5080 adopter claiming they have the same crashing and black screen problems as the 40-series user.
Another user chimed in, claiming their RTX 3070 needed a rollback due to crashes, suggesting the issue is more widespread than I first thought.
As the author of the Reddit post suggests, rolling back your NVIDIA driver to version 566.36 — launched December 5, 2024 — seems to alleviate these issues.
👉 See NVIDIA Game Ready drivers
However, rolling back to the driver from the pre-RTX 5000 landscape comes with several drawbacks.
NVIDIA enabled new features like DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation and DLSS4 Overrides with its post-RTX 5000 drivers, and it added support for plenty of new games that feature DLSS tech.
What’s the point of buying an RTX 50-series GPU if you can’t use some of its most-hyped features?
Multi Frame Generation (MFG) is what allowed NVIDIA to claim the RTX 5070 is as powerful as the RTX 4090 during its CES 2025 keynote presentation, and it’s evidently unusable by plenty of people.
Gamers Nexus replicates and confirms NVIDIA’s driver issues
Gamers Nexus uploaded a new video over the weekend that highlights and ultimately proves these issues are coming from NVIDIA’s side.
More specifically, GN tested hardware setups similar to those listed by users as causing problems.
Using NVIDIA’s 572.83 driver with an RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition GPU, GN quickly discovered replicable crashes in Star Wars: Outlaws, Marvel Rivals, Cyberpunk 2077, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Dual-monitor G-Sync setups with NVIDIA Frame Generation enabled seem to trigger these bugs most frequently, and it seems like the physical video out port in use on the GPU is a factor.
Beyond that, DLSS and NVIDIA Reflex could be causing problems in some cases.
With six 572.XX drivers released since the RTX 50-series launch, it doesn’t seem like NVIDIA is hurrying to fix these issues.
GN offers some workarounds in the meantime.
Reseating your video cables in different video ports on the GPU is the first (and easiest) recommendation, and it’s also suggested that you switch to HDMI if you’re currently using DisplayPort.
You should also consider disabling NVIDIA G-Sync and Frame Generation to test for increased stability.
Game devs are now recommending against NVIDIA’s latest drivers
As expected, game developers are as keen to take advantage of NVIDIA’s latest features as are the buyers of NVIDIA’s cards.
At least two games fresh on the market — inZOI and The First Berserker: Khazan — have now resorted to suggesting that players roll back their NVIDIA drivers to avoid issues.
inZOI’s v0.1.2 hotfix comes with advice on which driver is best for each series of NVIDIA GPU.
The recommended NVIDIA drivers for inZOI look a lot like what’s being suggested by The First Berserker: Khazan‘s developers.
Setting the drivers back to pre-RTX 50 launch also means you’ll be missing out on the latest NVIDIA features, which isn’t ideal.
I sincerely hope that NVIDIA can pinpoint the cause of these issues and release a new 572.XX driver to fix it.
